Subject: Re: [lojban] NU semantics

From: [email-masked]
Date: Sun, 7 Oct 2001 15:47:23 EDT

In a message dated 10/7/2001 1:46:55 AM Central Daylight Time, 
[email-masked] writes:

> The truth and amount
> abstractors are clear enough, so are those in the za'i series, but what is
> the difference between
> 
> leka brode
> lenu brode
> leli'i brode
> lesi'o brode
> ledu'u brode
> 
> a ka has to be supported by some nu for it to be true, this is also the case
> 

Whoa! What does it mean to say that a ka is true? And what does it mean to 
say that it has to be supported by some nu (is suppose you mean {nu} in 
particular, not just any old NU). A ka phrase is just a reference to a 
property (or quality or -- terminology went crazy here a while back); it is 
neither true nor false. A propeperty (broda, say) may belong to or 
characterize a thing (ko'a, say) and that would make the proposition du'u 
ko'a broda true and would mean that the event nu ko'a broda occurs. {li'i} 
and {si'o} are still being disputed, but li'i koa' broda seeems at one guess 
to be something that only applies to ko'a and si'o seems to be something 
mental (just rough first approximations). 

> 
> could these interpretations be possible?
> 
> leka brode du lenu ka'e brode
> ledu'u brode du lenu ca'a brode
> lesi'o brode du lenu nu'o brode
> leli'i brode du lenu pu'i brode
> 

No. The difference are not modal at all (or so only as remote consequences 
of more fundamental differences): the notions of property, proposition, 
event, experience and idea, while not perfectly explaining the meanings of 
the abstractors, go a long way in the right direction and do not involve 
modalities. (Oops, I just thought of a way that the last three might actually 
seem to involve modalities. All I can say is that, at least for {nu}, that 
equation does not work.)